While the weather may not have blessed it with the finest of days last summer, it sure failed to dampen the spirits of the committee behind the inaugural South East Country Music Festival.

The event was staged in the Bannow-Rathangan Show Grounds at Killag, just five minutes from the famous Kilmore Quay.

So enthusiastic were the committee with the people who came along to support the festival in south Wexford that no time was lost in putting together plans for a follow-up festival this summer. Work is already progressing well on the festival, which will be held at the same venue on Sunday, 30 July. The committee, in association with the Irish Farmers Journal, are delighted to announce the line-up for their second show.

The headline acts for the festival are Mike Denver, Jimmy Buckley, Nathan Carter, Lee Matthews, and Cliona Hagan. Watch out for further details in the weeks ahead.

Trevor keeps busy up North

Trevor Dixon has devoted many years of his life to the music circuit up North. Over the years he has cultivated enduring friendships with many people on the showbiz circuit and especially in the country music side of the business.

In recent weeks, Trevor has been back in the studios producing a new two-track cd that has been issued to the radio stations in the past few days.

My Home in County Down is already picking up plenty of airplay and is proving popular on several stations, especially in the Ulster region. The song was written by Jackie Flavelle over 40 years ago.

The other track, So Doggone Crazy, is very much in the country style of the 1950s and ’60s, with the strong brass influence that is part of so many of Trevor’s recordings down through the years.

California Cotton

Fields from Jimmy

Jimmy Buckley has opted to stay with the traditional sounds of country music with the release of his latest album, California Cotton Fields. For the singer who made his first breakthrough in the mid 1990s with the Randy Travis song Forever And Ever Amen, it is a wise decision by the Limerick man.

The 12-track release was recorded at Sprout Studios in Granard and the title song was a big hit years ago for American singer Dallas Frazer. Other familiar songs included here are Tear Stained Letter, Summertime Blues and Oh Carmen. The Merle Haggard song, Life’s Like Poetry, is also on the album.

My Mother, a co-write with Henry McMahon, Jimmy’s former manager and bandleader with The Mainliners, is the only Irish-written number on the current album. Jimmy also features the Hank Cochran composition, Don’t You Ever Get Tired of Hurting Me. The album is now on general release. Jimmy is looking forward to a busy season on the country circuit. The management number for Jimmy Buckley is 087 0667711.

Catriona in the studios

Caitriona Ni Cheannabháin (Catriona Canavan) from Carna, Co Galway, recorded a lovely version of the old Ronnie Millsap number, Back On My Mind Again, in Pat Coyne’s Studios in Cong last week. Catriona is one of the finalists in the current series of Glór Tíre on TG4 and shot a video to accompany the song.

The Connemara singer is also a top-class exponent of sean nós singing, and family members have won numerous awards at Oireachtas na Gaeilge over the years. She is one of 15 acts who will feature in the major Hoedown Hooley in the Castlecourt Hotel in Westport on St Patrick’s eve, 16 March, along with headline acts such as John Glenn, Paddy O’Brien, Frank McCaffrey, Don Stiffe, Matt Keane and Pat McKenna.